Air mattresses have been traditionally provided as a cushioning means for sleepers using cots, sleeping bags, or other body supports. Recently, the air mattress has begun to replace the traditional residential mattress which uses coils and springs. Much popularity has arisen in the home mattress market for a residential mattress having an air chamber for supporting the sleeper. The typical air mattress includes at least one air chamber and an inflation and deflation means. Such means for inflation and deflation range from hand pumps and blowers to computerized air control systems. The utilization of an air chamber provides a sleeping surface which can have varying levels of firmness to suit the preferences or needs of the sleeper with the use of two air chambers. The left and right sides of a bed can be set to maintain two different sleeping surface conditions to accommodate the specific preferences of each sleeper. For example, one sleeper may prefer a sleeping surface which is firm while the other may prefer a surface that is soft. Dual chambers allow for the accommodation of both sleepers.
Air chambers are available in many sizes, for example, a double mattress, a queen, and a king. In each mattress, whether single or double chambers, the volume of fluid per chamber is significantly different. As such, the amount of time required to inflate the mattress would vary as the number of attempts an air system takes to hit a desired fullness would vary. Development of an air system to consistently reproduce a sleep surface condition regardless of air chamber size is a matter to which significant attention needs to be directed. Additionally, an air chamber which inflates at a given interval with a consistent inflation time, regardless of air chamber size, is needed.
Although attempts have been made to produce consistent sleep surfaces with fixed inflation times, none have considered the variation in air mattresses sizes. These previous methods of controlling a pump or blower all contain significant disadvantages. Those employing a static look-up table to associate settings with pressure do not adjust for various mattress sizes. For example, these systems may require five minutes to fill a double mattress from empty to full, but, pressured the same, the difference for a king sizes mattress may be ten minutes.
While several air systems exist, none are self-calibrating, self-learning air systems that can accurately repeat a sleeping surface regardless of the air chamber. Also, none are able to inflate to the same fullness for a fixed time interval regardless of air chamber size.
An example of an air mattresses which is not self-calibrating is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,652,484. This patent discloses an automatic control system for controlling the pressure of an air mattress. A base processor controls the speed and time the blower runs for inflation. However, the processor calculates the time for running the blower each and every time the blower needs to run. This calculation does not consider air chamber size nor contains xe2x80x9clearningxe2x80x9d from inaccurate calculations.
The invention of U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,890 discloses an air control system for an air bed which utilizes an air pump having a diaphragm. The pump is directly controlled through buttons depressed by a user of the control system. No self-calibrations are made concerning the length of time nor the speed in which to run the pump.
Other examples of air control systems which do not contain means for self-calibration include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,394,784; 5,020,176; and 5,794,288.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide for an air mattress and air mattress control system for dynamically calculating the blower speed to provide fixed inflation times regardless of the mattress size.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an air system able to accurately replicate a prescribed sleep surface within a preselected period of time regardless of mattress size.
The foregoing and other objects are achieved by our invention which, in one aspect, is a system for controlling the inflation and deflation of an air chamber of an air mattress which comprises a system processor with a computer readable medium, an air blower whose speed is controlled by the processor, a supply port carried by the blower through which air is delivered to the chamber, a remote control for generating a command signal to the processor representing a desired degree of fullness of said air chamber; and a set of processing instructions within said readable medium responsive to a command signal so that responsive to said command signal, the processor executes instructions for retrieving a blower speed from an array of speeds, and retrieves a first adjustment value to the blower speed, adjusts the blower speed based on said adjustment value, and operating said blower at the adjusted blower speed. By controlling the degree or level of inflation or fullness of the mattress chamber the sleeping surface can be automatically adjusted to provide maximum comfort to the sleeper or user.
In another aspect, the present invention is an air mattress control system for controlling the inflation and deflation of an air chamber of an air mattress to provide a desired air chamber fullness having a system processor with a computer readable medium, an air blower operably connected to said computer readable medium which is operably connected to the system processor, and a supply line in fluid communication with the air chamber for inflating and deflating said air chamber comprising a remote control having a computer readable medium including a memory area, a numeric value stored in said memory area representing the desired fullness of the air chamber selected by a user, a plurality of control buttons carried by said remote control operably connected to said computer readable medium of said remote control, a set of remote control instructions contained within said computer readable medium of said remote control for, responsive to the depression of at least one of said control buttons, incrementing said numeric value to said system processor, a motor speed array indexed by desired fullness values, and, a set of processing instructions contained in said computer readable medium of said system processor for, in response to receiving said numeric value from said system processor, selecting a motor speed from said motor speed array, adjusting said selected motor speed, calculating a motor speed run time, and operating said motor speed at said adjusted motor speed for said calculated time.
In yet another aspect, the invention, is an improved method for controlling the fullness of an air mattress having at least one inflatable chamber and a means for generating a pressurized flow of air to the chamber through a supply port, the supply port including a value for admitting and removing air from said chamber, the chamber including a pressure sensor for measuring chamber fullness and the improvement comprises the steps of providing a multi-speed air blower as the means for generating pressurized air flow, the operating speed of said blower being selected from an array of discrete, incremented blower speeds, said speeds in said array being a predetermined function of chamber size and time to reach a designated percentage of fullness; a target value being a percentage of fullness; comparing the target value with the current level of chamber fullness measured by said sensor and determining the differential percentage, selecting a blower speed from an array corresponding to said differential percentage operating the blower at said selected speed, opening said valve to introduce pressurized air into said chamber through said valve, again determining the percentage of fullness measure by said sensor, and determining a new differential percentage; selecting a new blower speed based on the new differential, and operating the blower at the new speed to introduce air into the chamber, repeating the previous four steps until said target value is substantially reached whereupon said value is closed.
The pumps, valves, connectors, controllers, chambers, and other equipment mentioned herein is readily obtainable by those skilled in the art who, using this specification as a guide, can purchase and assemble the same.